New Zealand Writers

GRIMSHAW, Charlotte

"Atmospheric, intelligent, and seductively strange...leads you into a slow-burning nightmare."

GRIMSHAW, Charlotte (1966 - ) is a novelist whose first book, Provocation (1999), draws on her experience as a criminal lawyer.

While not a thriller in the strictest sense, Provocation makes use of many elements of the genre: suspense, violent crime and legal drama all feature in a story which might best be described as New Zealand noir. It has been well-received in both the UK, where it was first published, and in New Zealand.

English crime novelist Sarah Dunant describes Provocation as "[a]tmospheric, intelligent, and seductively strange...leads you into a slow-burning nightmare."

In New Zealand Books Catharina van Bohemen wonders: "Could a title such as Provocation be slipped alongside Persuasion and Pride and Prejudice? Charlotte Grimshaw sprawls beyond Austen's famous "two inches of ivory", and her writing at times is breathless; but Stella is arguably on the same path to self-knowledge as Anne Elliot and Elizabeth Bennet."

Guilt (2000) follows the lives of four characters in 1987 Auckland. As the title suggests, it explores the phenomenon of guilt, and the damage that people can inadvertently inflict on one another. Charlotte Grimshaw is now a full-time writer living in Auckland. She writes of her current project: "I've said in the past that my third novel is about stalking, but it is probably more accurately described as a novel about unrequited love."

(KC. Information from author.)

Updated Information

Charlotte Grimshaw received a 2000 Buddle Findlay Sargeson Writers Fellowship.

Grimshaw's latest novel is Foreign City (Random House NZ, 2005). Essentially three novels in one, Foreign City is firstly the story of a young New Zealand painter living in London. She has two chance encounters that set her on a search for answers. Can she really ‘see’ her new city properly? Can she reconcile family life and art?

"Smart and readable, Foreign City not only cements Grimshaw's already considerable reputation, it marks her out as exceptional," writes Louise O'Brien in The Dominion Post.

Grimshaw contributed one short story to the new anthology, Myth of the 21st Century (Reed, 2006). She has also contributed 'Thin Earth' to The Best of New Zealand Fiction. Volume Three (Vintage, 2006).

Charlotte Grimshaw was awarded the 2006 Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Award for her short story 'Plane Sailing' which judges described as 'clever, serious, amusing, superbly crafted and wonderfully sly'. The annual Bank of New Zealand Katherine Mansfield Awards are one of New Zealand's longest running creative writing awards and were launched to help New Zealand writers achieve recognition in their own country.

Grimshaw's latest collection of short stories is Opportunity (Random House, 2007) This is a series of stories that can be read separately, but contribute to a unified whole. The author says it is "a novel with a large cast of characters...each story stands by itself, and at the same time adds itself to the larger one."

Opportunity was short-listed for the world's richest short fiction prize, the Frank O'Connor International Short Story Award.

Grimshaw was awarded the Fiction award, and the Montana Medal for Fiction or Poetry at the Montana Book Awards in 2008 for Opportunity.